Charlie Hebdo Terror Attack: Nothing to do with Islam, but something to do with the Imams.

You can read and hear a range of reactions from the public on the Charlie Hebdo terror attack. All sane voices, Muslims and others have condemned it.

 

Muslims will say that this is a terrible atrocity. Some will use it as yet another proof that ISIS and Al-Qaeda have nothing to do with Islam.

 

 

Our moderate leaders and organizations will condemn it as an attack on free speech. Most of them will also say that this has nothing to do with Islam. Far-right groups, religious bigots and populist columnists will blame Islam, Muslims and Immigration policies for the attack.

 

 

And then there are two groups which will use this as another ‘told you so’ moment to further their agenda of hatred and intolerance.

 

 

On one hand, we have the perpetrators of the attack and their supporters, who believe that their religion justifies such violence. They would say that Charlie Hebdo’s cartoonists had crossed all bounds when they mocked the Prophet of Islam and their religion in such derogatory cartoons over the years. They had it coming.

 

 

The other group, the militant atheists will say that all religion including Islam are backward and superstitious. Their pontiff-in-chief Richard Dawkins says that not all religions are violent, only Islam is. And yes, Charlie Hebdo and their likes had it coming because our society is too scared to insult or ban Islam.

 

 

Blame the religion of course. How logical! 

 

 

I am going through the back catalogue Charlie Hebdo’s cartoon covers. I never saw one of them before, and do not wish to be subjected to such vulgarity again. It is a veritable collection of cheap humour masquerading as journalism. Graffiti has a place in human history, but it belongs to the doors and walls of public toilets, not on your local news stand.

 

 

Why would anyone need to insult a religion is beyond me. But if they want to do so, I would rather be reading, viewing or listening to something less offensive.

 

 

But there are those who are compelled to mock and ridicule the ideas they don’t like. 

 

You can mock politicians for their behavior or policies. You can ridicule a celebrity for the latest fad they are into. Or you can make poignant observations through the medium of cartoons to draw your viewer’s attention to a controversial subject. And there are no limits to what you want to express. From the sublime to the blasphemous, you can do what you like. As a viewer or a reader, I can choose not to read or view such works. As a Muslim, this is what Quran tells me to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will be very curious to learn the views of certain Imams of mosques of various denominations in the UK on this subject. I suspect that a majority of them would rather not express themselves honestly in the media. The truth is very uncomfortable to both these Imams and those politicians who go to them begging for votes every election season.

 

Most orthodox Muslim scholars do support very draconian punishments for the act of blasphemy. 

 

This has to change. Quran does not consider blasphemy as a crime. It is a sin of course, the punishment of which if not repented, will be in the afterlife.

 

 

 

But if you look at certain interpretations of some well-known scholars, and you will be surprised that their opinions contradict the Quran.

 

Mufti Obaidullah Qasmi of Darul Uloom Deoband  writes

 

‘The death punishment assigned for blasphemy is agreed by all Islamic scholars of Ahlus Sunnah wal Jama’ah and, is normally covered in Kitabul Hudud in Islamic juridical texts’.

 

 

Deoband school of though is followed by a large number of Muslims from the Indian sub-continent.

 

The more ‘moderate’ Barelvi sect which makes up a large proportion of the Immigrant Pakistani Diaspora in Britain is no different.

 

Sadanand Dhume of the Wallstreet Journal observes in a recent news report

 

‘ Clerics from Pakistan’s majority Barelvi stream of Islam—widely regarded as more tolerant than the rival Deobandi school associated with the Taliban—are among the loudest defenders of the country’s blasphemy laws.’

 

 

Pakistan’s blasphemy laws condemn the accused to death by hanging.

 

 

Same is true for the wide range of Sunni and Shia sects which have sway over the Muslim world.

 

 

Such interpretations of Quran which ignore its actual content but rely on the various medieval interpretations imposed upon it through the centuries have to be rejected. Ahmadiyya Muslim movement has denounced such notions of violence in the name of religion for many decades now. And it is heartening to see more and more Muslims coming closer to our way of understanding the Quran.

 

 

I am happy that our Muslim friends will stand up and condemn this horrendous and murderous attack, but please also ask the Imams and clerics in your mosques to denounce the ideas of punishments for blasphemy and apostasy in their Friday sermons.

 

 

For Muslims, this is another opportunity to think and question their faith leaders. This menace and hatred ISIS and Al-Qaeda have manifested in their extreme acts may need to be rooted out form their own mosques and homes first.

Drawing Pictures: Since when has it become offensive?

Over the last many decades, a large majority of the western Christian world has in practice stopped being Christian, thus reactions to insults and blasphemies have dimmed down to solitary voices here and there. Atheism is the fashion. No one wants to declare openly that they revere a person or deity because of their religious faith.


But this is not a question of existence of God. The question here is.. Can you force a group of people to change their values that you do not agree with? Aggressive atheists these days are happy to shout at every forum how religion has caused intolerance and bigotry in the society. But here is a test case.. UCL's atheist society publishing cartoons of Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them) and expecting this to go unnoticed!

Muslims do not draw human form; they do not build statues for religious purposes. Yes, there are Muslim artists who paint and draw human form, and there is nothing wrong with it. But this has to be kept strictly outside of religious sphere because of the express command of the founder of Islam (peace be upon him). This is a strong value that all practicing Muslims adhere to. No pictures are to be found in any Mosque around the world. A Billion Muslims hold this belief which safeguards the monotheistic basis of Islam. Yet a handful of atheists think that drawing a picture of Muhammad (peace be upon him) for whatever reason should be acceptable?

Atheists, born and brought up in the West (or influenced by European values) may think that drawing pictures is what humans have always done. What is wrong with that? European art galleries are full of depictions of religious figures on canvas and in stone and in metal. But Islam is not a European faith. Neither was Christianity. Regardless of what Greek and Roman art did to Christianity, Islam has not “traded in” its values for the sake of gaining adherents.

This is despite the fact that Islamic scholars re-discovered Greek philosophy and had decades of conflict with the Romans. Usually such interactions results in softening of certain closely held values, and they did. Early rationalist movement in Islam (Mu’tazillites) had deep roots in Greek logic. Yet, no Muslim ever thought of painting or sculpting a Holy figure or a saint. Enough proof that depiction of religious figures was an absolute taboo for Muslims.There are some very rare depictions of Holy personalities in Iranian Shia culture, but it has never been accepted by the wider Muslim world. Those paintings in which the prophet has been depicted can only be described as only limited to a particular era and was largely unknown by the Muslim majority. Most other depictions in Islamic minature arts show the prophet as a halo or a veiled figure.

All reasonable Humanists and Atheists will understand why Muslims take offense when someone tries to depict the Prophet of Islam (peace be upon him). It is because drawing of a picture has never been an Islamic tradition. Yes, it has been a tradition in the conquered lands and Islam has not forbidden artistic representations of human form, but only as a secular art. It has become a Christian tradition, which is why even many Christians do not take offense when Jesus has been mocked at by cartoonists and comedians. People at this atheist society at UCL want practicing Muslims to “tolerate” their attempts at mocking Muslim values? Where is the sense in that?

Why should we not allow BNP and EDL to mock and vilify Islam and Muslims too? What is the difference? And what is wrong with a bit of holocaust denial and some “good-natured” anti-Semitism? Some "fact based" scientific racism.. anyone? Let us accept all this in the name of tolerance!! Updated: 28Jan2014